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camilleisreading24's review against another edition
2.0
TL;DR
OVERALL TAKE: This story was fine, but simply not for me.
Detailed Review:
This story was just ok--a solid 3/5. I kept expecting it to get to a point where I would be more fully engaged but it couldn't quite make it over the mediocre hump.
The "meh" bits:
1) The story was split into two perspectives. While I enjoyed the chapters narrated by Frances, the ones concerning Yasha did not engage me. Everytime I turned the page and saw that it was a section about Yasha, I was tempted to skip to the next Frances chapter. The perspective changes were also awkward since the author made the decision to tell Frances' portions from a first person POV, and Yasha's from a third person POV that was usually (but not always) limited to Yasha's inner thoughts. This seems like something only a very experienced (or perhaps, simply a better) author ought to try.
2) The love story simply wasn't that convincing. This book was billed as an amazing love story in which two people find each other at the top of the world and heal together. However, after reading the whole book, it seems to me that they do a lot more healing on their own than they do together. Aside from a strong physical attraction to each other, I do not understand why these two gravitate toward one another.
3) The writing wandered into strange metaphors and sentimental phrasing. For instance:
"Yasha didn't answer. When we had passed the lake, he said, 'Sigbjorn says I know how to make a girl love me.' I looked at him. 'I don't know if I do. I mean, I don't know if you do. Sigbjorn doesn't know that I love you,' he said--he looked at me a moment too long, the car drifted, a car behind us honked, and he looked straight ahead again. His profile looked like Caraveggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit. I wanted to be the basket he carried. He said, 'I have to stay here.' " p. 234
It happened so often that eventually I found myself just skipping the long blocks of descriptive text and reading the dialogue only.
The good parts:
1) Frances' chapters were really entertaining and I liked this character's voice and understood her motivations. I would enjoy reading a book told only by Frances.
2) The descriptions of Norway and the tiny bit of Norwegian culture were fascinating. I would love to visit the archipelago of Lofoten and to see the sun shining at midnight.
OVERALL TAKE: This story was fine, but simply not for me.
Detailed Review:
This story was just ok--a solid 3/5. I kept expecting it to get to a point where I would be more fully engaged but it couldn't quite make it over the mediocre hump.
The "meh" bits:
1) The story was split into two perspectives. While I enjoyed the chapters narrated by Frances, the ones concerning Yasha did not engage me. Everytime I turned the page and saw that it was a section about Yasha, I was tempted to skip to the next Frances chapter. The perspective changes were also awkward since the author made the decision to tell Frances' portions from a first person POV, and Yasha's from a third person POV that was usually (but not always) limited to Yasha's inner thoughts. This seems like something only a very experienced (or perhaps, simply a better) author ought to try.
2) The love story simply wasn't that convincing. This book was billed as an amazing love story in which two people find each other at the top of the world and heal together. However, after reading the whole book, it seems to me that they do a lot more healing on their own than they do together. Aside from a strong physical attraction to each other, I do not understand why these two gravitate toward one another.
3) The writing wandered into strange metaphors and sentimental phrasing. For instance:
"Yasha didn't answer. When we had passed the lake, he said, 'Sigbjorn says I know how to make a girl love me.' I looked at him. 'I don't know if I do. I mean, I don't know if you do. Sigbjorn doesn't know that I love you,' he said--he looked at me a moment too long, the car drifted, a car behind us honked, and he looked straight ahead again. His profile looked like Caraveggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit. I wanted to be the basket he carried. He said, 'I have to stay here.' " p. 234
It happened so often that eventually I found myself just skipping the long blocks of descriptive text and reading the dialogue only.
The good parts:
1) Frances' chapters were really entertaining and I liked this character's voice and understood her motivations. I would enjoy reading a book told only by Frances.
2) The descriptions of Norway and the tiny bit of Norwegian culture were fascinating. I would love to visit the archipelago of Lofoten and to see the sun shining at midnight.
coachadnycbooks's review against another edition
1.0
I got about halfway through The Sunlit Night and just couldn't go on. It started out pretty good as I was engaged by the stories of Frances and Yasha. However, by the time their eventually meeting happened, I was both bored to tears and incredibly annoyed. Yasha's mother ruined the book for me. She was such an annoyingly narcissistic character with absolutely no redeeming qualities who I wish would have fallen into a fjord and died. I get that stories have antagonists, but she just drove me nuts with what a self-absorbed, spineless, clueless person she was. I couldn't deal, it ruined the book, so I abandoned ship.
ddejong's review against another edition
4.0
This was a sweet quirky story-- nothing deep, but I enjoyed it. The cover made me nervous- it looks very YAish. And the first couple pages made me nervous- a bad de ja vu from the first episode of Aziz Ansari's show, "Master of None." But I had a good feeling given the Jonathan Safran Foer endorsement on the cover, and the book came through for me. Though the reading is definitely easy, I really thought Dinerstein did a solid job with her character development (particularly, I must say, the very eccentric parents of both main characters), and there were times where her language would cause me to pause, re-read a sentence/paragraph, and savor the unexpected turn of phrase or sharp description. The plot in short: two main characters, Frances (22) and Yasha/Yakov (17-18), both New Yorkers. Both are pushing through very painful but common human experiences-- dissolving marriages, family discord, deaths of loved ones, and uncertainty about the future. Their paths cross in an eccentric Norwegian locale for a summer-- thus the "sunlit night" which is also, I think, an allusion to the "light" that manages to flicker against a backdrop of grief/uncertainty/circumstances that are not ideal for Yasha and Frances. This is Dinerstein's first novel, and I will keep an eye on her future work.
readingwithhippos's review against another edition
3.0
The Sunlit Night is one of the weirder love stories I've read. For starters, it's set at “the top of the world,” on an island near the Arctic Circle where, in the summer, the sun never sets. Frances travels there to be part of an artists' colony that turns out to be one guy with a bunch of yellow paint. Yasha makes his way from Brooklyn by way of Russia, on a quest to honor his father and make sense of his mother's abandonment. In the Far North they find a wacky cast of characters who make their stay interesting, to say the least.
Frances and Yasha each have their share of family drama to deal with. Frances's sister has announced she's getting married, and their parents are so opposed to the man she's chosen, they're throwing up every roadblock they can think of to keep the wedding from happening. Yasha's mother claimed she would follow her husband and son to the US from Russia, but never showed up, making vague excuses over the phone until finally cutting off contact altogether. Frances and Yasha are alike in feeling as if they're the sensible islands in the middle of their individual family whirlpools.
While I loved Dinerstein's offbeat humor (Frances's frequent Skype conversations with her parents are exercises in the absurd), her choppy, declarative writing style kept me at a distance. She doesn't provide any subtext that a reader can parse for clues. What you see on the page is what you get. Even though I liked Frances and Yasha, I don't know that I quite made it to any higher plain of meaning the novel intended me to reach.
Still, if you enjoy quirky love stories set in exotic destinations populated with colorful locals, you'll likely find Frances and Yasha a charming pair.
With regards to Bloomsbury USA and NetGalley for the advance copy. On sale June 2.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
Frances and Yasha each have their share of family drama to deal with. Frances's sister has announced she's getting married, and their parents are so opposed to the man she's chosen, they're throwing up every roadblock they can think of to keep the wedding from happening. Yasha's mother claimed she would follow her husband and son to the US from Russia, but never showed up, making vague excuses over the phone until finally cutting off contact altogether. Frances and Yasha are alike in feeling as if they're the sensible islands in the middle of their individual family whirlpools.
While I loved Dinerstein's offbeat humor (Frances's frequent Skype conversations with her parents are exercises in the absurd), her choppy, declarative writing style kept me at a distance. She doesn't provide any subtext that a reader can parse for clues. What you see on the page is what you get. Even though I liked Frances and Yasha, I don't know that I quite made it to any higher plain of meaning the novel intended me to reach.
Still, if you enjoy quirky love stories set in exotic destinations populated with colorful locals, you'll likely find Frances and Yasha a charming pair.
With regards to Bloomsbury USA and NetGalley for the advance copy. On sale June 2.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
fbarkalow's review against another edition
5.0
This was by far one of the most delightful novels I have had read in a long while. The author's style is quite unique, using different points of view for the two protagonists, but worked very well to draw me right into the story. The characters, while somewhat quirky, were believable and very well developed to the point that I did not want the story to end. I found myself quite amused at the common use in Norway of the word 'super' before many adjectives, like 'fine' and 'large' as extra emphasis resulting in 'superfine' and 'superlarge'. The effect was almost comedic. The dialog, while spare at times, still managed to pack quite a punch and convey a lot of meaning. The story was engaging and captured the trials and tribulations of the human spirit in seeking relationships with others. I look forward to more fiction by this author.
bookgardendc's review against another edition
2.0
There are some charming moments and some lovely phrases but in the end I just didn't care all that much about the characters.
green_ghost's review against another edition
I think this might be one of my all-time least favourite books.
thepictureofjaygatsby's review against another edition
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25